If you are new to swimming (or just have never ventured into figuring some of this out), here are some tips for helping you locate your swimmers' times in USA Swimming.

FIRST - CHECK OUR WEBSITEOur website keeps accurate and official times for your swimmer. What you need to remember is this information is not instantly available after a meet. It may take a week or so to update. However, it is a good first place to look for your times. To do so, follow these steps:

Log in to your account

Click the "My Account" tab on the left column

Click the "My Meet Results" option in that menu (it's the one with the stopwatch)

You can choose to filter for specific results if you wish, but by choosing which swimmer you want to view (if you have more than one), you should see all their times from every meet they have entered. There's even a column that shows what place they took in that meet if they placed high enough in their age group (this only shows the places that were counted as "top" for that meet).

SECOND - CHECK THE USA SWIMMING TIMES DATABASEThe USA Swimming website keeps times for every registered USA Swimmer in the country. Simply fill out the form on this page and you'll have access to the times you are looking for. The abbreviations for the pool sizes are as follows (LCM - long course meters; SCY - short course yards; SCM - short course meters). For reference, the summer season is a "long course" season. These are swims done in 50 meter pools. The winter, indoor season is done in 25 yard pools. These are short course pools.

CAN I FIND THE SPECIFIC MEET RESULTS FROM A MEET WE WENT TO?
Yes, you can! All you need to do is visit the Missouri Valley Swimming website and the meet results page. On this page, you can scroll to the meet you are looking for (they are in chronological order) and click the "VIEW" link on the far right (the "TM" and "MM" links are files for swimming software and you will not be able to read them). The "VIEW" link should allow you to open or save a .pdf version of the meet results just like they are posted on the wall at the meets. Once again, however, please note it can take a week or more to post these results.

MOBILE OPTIONS
If you have a smart phone and would like to track times and even time your swimmer's races at meets, there are two programs that are very nice.

OnDeck Parent - this is an application for smart phones (available for iphone and android phones). This is the best application out there for COOL families if you have the iphone or ipad because it syncs with our team website and keeps all your information up-to-date. To get OnDeck, follow these steps:

Go to the app store on your phone or computer

Download "OnDeck Parent" - note there is a "coach" version that will not work for you. Be sure to download the "parent" version of the application.

Once installed, you'll log in with the user name and password you use for the website.

When it asks for the team alias type in mvscool (all lower case)

Hit "remember me" and then "log in"

Choose to sync - this is best done over wifi, but can be done with cell service if you have a data plan.

Explore all the features.

DECKPASS from USA Swimming - this is another full featured application available for both the iphone and android platform. Deckpass taps into the USA swimming database rather than our team website. You can learn more about DeckPass on USA Swimming's website.